Monthly Archives: March 2012

The Supreme Court of Virginia dismisses a death-row defendant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which makes allegations relating to these issues, among others: a juror’s disclosure that his brother was a law enforcement officer, Brady claims, defense counsel’s ...

A former Newport News Circuit judge fails to overturn or reduce a jury award against her for defamation for telling newspaper reporters that a former court employee who accused the judge of sexual harassment had been “institutionalized,” in this decision ...

A defendant who wanted to appeal her embezzlement conviction but filed her transcripts late in the Court of Appeals after some confusion about whether she was pro se or had counsel gets another chance to petition the Court of Appeals, ...

The Supreme Court of Virginia upholds a $1.95 million jury award to a man whose wife died after outpatient plastic surgery; the trial court did not err in denying a mistrial on a defense complaint about a juror telling plaintiff’s ...

A circuit court’s sentencing order following defendant’s Alford plea to attempted rape was void ab initio because the order provided the court could reduce the conviction to misdemeanor sexual battery after defendant’s release from incarceration and successful completion of probation, ...

In the latest in a series of cases involving an accused found in a drunken condition in a parked vehicle with the keys in the ignition switch, the Supreme Court adds this case to the list of those allowing conviction ...

A native of China who moved to the U.S. in 2007 to attend high school, and to Virginia in 2009 to attend Virginia Commonwealth University, is not entitled to pay in-state tuition rates and the Supreme Court of Virginia reverses ...

A woman detained at a regional jail after her arrest on suspicion of possession of narcotics was “confined” within the meaning of Va. Code § 8.01-243.2, which governs full body cavity searches related to conditions of confinement, and the Virginia ...

A trial court did not abuse its discretion in refusing to set aside a laundry service’s default judgment against a hospital company that could not account for its failure to respond to proper service of process on the Secretary of ...

The Virginia Supreme Court says a police officer who suffered neck and shoulder injuries when a motorist rear-ended a county sheriff’s car in which the officer was a passenger cannot collect medical payments under his personal auto liability policy which ...